Lunch for a Landscape 1975 (printed 2009)

About this Work

Artist

Place of Birth

Odense, Denmark

Medium

Chromogenic print mounted on 3 mm dibon / 3 mm mat acrylic

Dimensions

48 3/4 x 67 3/4 in.

Credit

Gift of Montana A/S

On Display

No

Lunch for a Landscape encapsulates Kirsten Justesen’s interest in Body art with a feminist focus. After graduating from art school in 1975, she was a young mother whose studio was “between the kitchen and the nursery.” She began using her own body to make art, creating drawings, photographs, and plaster casts of it.

This photograph is part of a series of critical but humorous images Justesen created called Husmor Billeder, or Housewife Pictures. She posed for this image, noting, “A housewife is on her way in the vehicle of her life.” The Housewife Pictures were printed as posters and appeared in women’s magazines and art literature.

Justesen described the context for this work: “I made this when I was raising two small boys, breastfeeding the baby, and also living as a spouse in a foreign country [Canada]. I describe my life then as a daily ‘housewife ballet.’ I was planning for my first large solo exhibition in Copenhagen in spring 1975.” Lunch for a Landscape became the publicity poster for the exhibition.